Vera Hiltbrunner

Soprano Vera Hiltbrunner, born in Bern, Switzerland, completed her Masters in vocal studies at the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg (NL) under the tutelage of Sinan Vural and Xenia Meijer in 2016 following her Bachelors at the Musik-Akademie Basel.

During the 2016/2017 season, she performed with the Dutch opera company Opera2day in the production Dr. Miracle’s last illusion, in which she sang the role of Olympia from J. Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Theater De Nieuwe Kolk in Assen (NL).
In 2016 she interpreted the role of Anne in Grigory Frid’s Mono-Opera The Diary of Anne Frank, directed by Sebastian Ukena at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In the same year she made her debut in the role of Adele in J. Strauss’ Die Fledermaus.

For the dance piece: A way of keeping everything from happening at once Hiltbrunner recorded originals together with Clarinettist Ab Baars (Stichting WIG) in 2014. She has performed as a soloist in numerous oratorio works including: C. Orff’s Carmina Burana, J. Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis, Mendelssohn’s Ein Sommernachtstraum and Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël. Internationally, the soprano regularly appears on stages in Austria, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Due to her special interest in physical acting for opera singers, she has worked with opera stage director Olivia Fuchs, a Laban Movement Analysis specialist, in order to research the applications of Laban for opera singers.

The soprano was a recipient of the Hans Huber-Stiftung scholarship (Basel) and a study grant from the Stiftung Lyra (Zurich). Her training has included studies with Rosa Dominguez (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis) and she has followed masterclasses with Margreet Honig, Elsina Jansen, Paul Triepels, stage director Frank Hilbrich, Francois Le Roux, Janet Perry and Maestro Paolo Vaglieri. Vera is very invested in baroque music and ensemble singing. In 2015 she made her Utrecht Early Music Fringe Festival debut, with the vocal ensemble The Calliope Consort and she sang in the project San Marco in Gelderland of the NJO 2015 festival, performing polyphonic music of the Venetian School for eight vocalists and trombones under the baton of Etienne Siebens. Together with cornettist Jedediah Allen and harpsichordist Andreas Westermann she founded the Ensemble La Casellain 2016. The focus of this collaboration lies on the interplay between the human voice and the cornetto. In 2016 their tour commenced with the programme Feast and Famine.